1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to electronic communication devices and in particular to message authentication and transmission from electronic communication devices. Sill more particularly, the present disclosure relates to message authentication and transmission from a communication device that is configured with mechanisms for capturing biometric input.
2. Description of the Related Art
Personal electronic devices such as smart phones are becoming ubiquitous, as the devices provide a source of entertainment, communication, navigation, and personal assistance. Today's devices can have a number of biometrics technologies, such as imager, fingerprint sensor, voice detection, etc., that are embedded in the devices and which are used for user identification. Often, these personal electronic devices are utilized to generate and communicate messages, such as emails and/or text message, from the device to a recipient. It is expected that these messages would normally be created and/or transmitted by the owner or an authorized user of the device. However, this scenario is not always the case as these devices can occasionally be (i) borrowed by a friend or family member, (ii) lost or stolen, or (iii) subject to third party hacking. In such instances, message generation and transmission is not by the owner or an authorized user, and any type of content can be included in messages that are generated and/or transmitted from the device. Presently, other than simply locking the device from use altogether, there is no way for an authorized user to prevent message generation and transmission with content that the authorized user may not approve of or which would not be normal message content that the user would send.
Additionally, as a surrogate for face-to-face interactions, digital personas and social media are playing an increasingly significant role in prompting and facilitating one's personal and professional interactions. Human nature and history suggests that with this trend comes an increasing risk of deception, criminal activity, and other abuses that digital interactions are particularly vulnerable to. People need a way to validate that the individuals they are interacting with in certain types of interactions are who they say they are.
Additionally, in the social media context, certified contextual information accompanying the communication can afford the recipient an opportunity to do “natural” identity validation. The contextual information can be similar to social media in that users are able to validate identity just by the nature of the personal dialog and references that accrue to their pages, all of which would be challenging to fake convincingly. However, such contextual information is not generally available in other modes of communication and other interaction domains.